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Brandy, her husband and the kids live in a rundown park of static caravans in Beattyville, Kentucky.

The town was doing well four decades ago but the factories – including shoe companies and a uniform manufacturer – have now gone. The area’s two largest employers, the county jail and a prison, shut down last summer.

Beattyville has been gripped for years by a drug epidemic.

Brandy says: “There just ain’t no hope for us folks here. The Government gone left us up high and dry.

“We are the forgotten people of this country – much like the industries they took away from us.

“It doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have, my vote counts for the same as anyone else. Our voice is just as important, if not more so, than those Clinton and Trump are trying to win over.

"If only one of them ever mentioned us – the poor – 43 million would be voting for them. We simply don’t matter.”

More than 13% of the nation’s population are in poverty. Surviving on state handouts, families are often given the equivalent of £205 a month to live on. But some get nothing.

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Trump sign in front of a trailer park in Beattyville, Kentucky (Image: James Breeden)

During the election campaign the main party’s nominees have said very little about poverty. Mrs Clinton has underscored her credentials as an advocate for middle class families.

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Harvard University professor of sociology Matthew Desmond said: “We aren’t having in our presidential debate a serious conversation about the fact that we are the richest democracy in the world, with the most poverty. It should be at the very top of the agenda.”

Poverty fell after Reagan’s warning about America’s “gathering crisis”. But by 2001 the figures began to rise again.

Wages for the wealthiest 1% doubled from 1979 to 2011 as the average worker got a 6% rise.

Nationally, 3.1% of income earned annually now goes to the poorest 20% and 51.4% to the richest 20%. In New York and Connecticut, the first and second-worst states for income distribution, more than 25% was held by the richest 5%.